It was always interesting to come back to the place of your birth. He’d lived in Nar Shaddaa for a while, before he’d joined the Empire and enlisted in the Imperial Army. His parents had been dead by then, and despite being underage, he’d been able to get the recruiters to look the other way so that he could join. While he had been in the Army’s basic training, he’d been selected to be part of the Stormtrooper Corps. That had been pretty crazy. Cameron Savros had served in the Stormtrooper Corps and had been a part of the famed 11th Battle Group under Teron Helstone. He’d seen a lot of battle, a lot of fighting over the years. After the final battle of the Xen’Chi War, a lot of people had opted to leave when their contracts were up. Cameron had been one of those people. Many had tried to get the Sergeant First Class to stay in the Corps, but he’d seen enough.

Indoctrinating him into the Empire and serving the Emperor had been one thing, but by the time that the training had been done, Endor had already taken place. Who was there to blindly serve? Not the Emperor that was for sure. But by then, he’d been trained enough to follow orders. It was only after he’d acquitted himself well in fighting the Rebel Alliance, quickly becoming the New Republic, and had started to rise into the non commissioned officer corps that he had began to become disillusioned with the Empire. He had to protect his soldiers and the role that he had in their life was an important one. But no one cared about them, not really. Everyone felt that there were just so many stormtroopers and that they were expendable.

So he’d left.

He’d left and he’d struck out on his own. He had received great training thanks to the Galactic Empire. Also, Cameron had never had that many bills and he’d saved up a large amount of the money that he’d been paid over the years. All of the money saved up had allowed him to buy an old JumpMaster5000. The thing was a bit of a rust bucket, but he’d sunk a few thousands here and there on getting the thing up to date and functional. It could move, it had a hyperdrive, and it had shields. That much was enough for Cam. He was in a bar on Nar Shaddaa and he had a beer from a local brewery in his hands. Contentment was a hard thing to find these days, but Cameron would be damned if he wasn’t getting close to it. He reached into his inside coat pocket and his fingers brushed against the stack of credits that he’d just been paid. Six thousand credits. A good sum.

He’d outrun an Imperial patrol in order to make sure he got that. It had been five standard, with an extra thousand if he could get the cargo to the drop off point in a timely manner. The Empire had always taught him that if you were on time to something you were late. Being early was just something that had been ingrained in him for years. Never would he say that there wasn’t some value to the training that was given to a Stormtrooper of the Galactic Empire. Already he had a good chunk of that money earmarked for things that his ship needed. The money was going to pay off the debt that he’d incurred at one of the local mechanics. They’d helped him out with a new series of power converters and he’d paid half then and now he would fork over four thousand of his hard earned credits in order to pay off the rest of the bill.

Cameron Savros was a man of his word.

He was looking at one of the many holoscreens on display in the bar. They were broadcasting the fights from Kresh Lorda and he watched as a Mandalorian guy killed a Wookiee. That had to have been a tough one. Cameron had fought against a number of different species in his days and he definitely held Wookiees in high regard for their resiliency. If he’d come into the bar earlier, he would have put some money on the fight and he would have lost, betting against the Mandalorian. It wasn’t that he doubted the Mandalorian’s fighting prowess, he just knew the average abilities of a grown Wookiee. Lots of people did. And most of them didn’t have all of their species given limbs.

Suddenly there were loud voices behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a Bith and a Gotal about to get into a fight. With a shrug, he turned around in his seat. Lifting his glass, he saluted the brawl that had just started. “Fifty credits on the Gotal.” He said, figuring that he might as well get in on this fight.

Last edited by Mir on Mon Mar 12, 2012 7:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Cameron watched as the fight started. Someone had taken him up on the bet. He watched as the fight started to get more than a little out of hand. The barkeep was trying to get the two patrons to calm down, but then it turned into a bigger brawl, until there were five or six people fighting. For Cam, it was a good bit of fun to watch. Smiling to himself, he brought his drink up and took a long pull. After a good harrowing race against time, it was always nice to have the ability to sit back and unwind. Suddenly someone took a hard punch and was thrown towards where Cameron was sitting. Less than a minute or so later, Cameron was getting punched, having gotten into the fight.

It was never his intention, but it had happened anyway. He’d thrown some punches and had gotten tackled to the ground. The fight had somehow snowballed out of control had turned into a whole bar involving brawl. In the end, the bartender had been forced to call the local authorities. That was when things had gotten interesting. People had started to clear out and Savros had wanted to be the first out. He hadn’t broken any New Republic laws in recent memory, but at the same time, he didn’t want to have anything on his record. Smugglers and traders, they needed to keep their records as clean as possible in order to get away with things.

Now he was nursing a bleeding lip and a bit of pain in his ribs. Someone had gotten a lucky kick in at one point, but it wasn’t the person that he’d been up against at the time. Some random passerby. That hurt more than the kick itself did. Cameron looked at his fingers after he brought it up to his lip. He saw the little bit of blood that was on his fingers and he grimaced. It wouldn’t be enough to really hurt in the morning, and neither would the kick. If anything it was going to be nothing more than an annoyance. He caught a series of turbolifts and then he was walking through a series of hallways until he reached his destination.

There she was, his ship. The Fastdraw. The modified JumpMaster5000 looked beautiful as always. Cameron loved his ship. Especially when she worked for him. Slowly he was turning that into a more common occurrence.

Walking up the lowering boarding ramp, he pressed the button that would retreat the ramp and lock the ship for the night. He took off his hat and then shrugged out of his jacket. Cameron unbelted his hip holster and tossed it on to one of the tables in the galley of the ship. Everything was in order on his ship, as he’d checked out his security system when he’d gotten on board. Heading to his quarters, he decided that it was time for a good, long sleep.

Sleep was something that he was just not going to be allowed to have, it seemed, as Cameron was woken up a few hours later to the sound of his ship’s alarms going off. He had locked up the ship nice and tight before he had gone to sleep. But before he’d gone to sleep, he’d set the alarm system back on. There were motion sensors in place, and should someone come into the path of the sensors and stay there for a long period of time, more than two or three minutes, he was alerted inside, though there was no outward signal of any sort. Someone was close by and he meant to find out who it was exactly. Rising from his bunk, he half ran over to the console, cursing in Huttese as he stubbed his toe on one of the walls of his ship.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes as he realized he’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, he looked through the cameras and saw a rather attractive human female standing where his boarding ramp would lower, along with what looked like two New Republic soldiers. He sighed to himself. This wasn’t going to end well. Definitely not going to end well. It didn’t get any better when he saw the BlasTech firearms in their hands. Grabbing his coat and hat, he put them on, and then strapped his DE-10 Special in.

His sleep induced haze had made him ignore a lot of his outside stimuli and finally the fact that the woman was basically ringing his doorbell registered. She wasn’t going anywhere and this lead him to believe that she knew that someone was on board. Grumbling to himself, Cameron walked over to the door controls and punched in the combination code that shut down the alarms. Then he activated the boarding ramp and stood, waiting for it to lower.

As the boarding ramp lowered, he kept an easy hand on his holster. If he needed his blaster, he’d use it. Cameron hadn’t named his ship the Fastdraw for any old reason. No one he’d ever met had had a faster draw than he did. One of a kind some people said. He didn’t care about that. As long as he was alive at the end of a firefight, then he didn’t care how it got done, just that it got done. That was the most important part, after all. When the boarding ramp was completely lowered, he started to walk down. The woman started to walk up, but he shook his head and coughed.

“Didn’t invite you on board yet, ma’am. Technically you’re trespassing unless you move them two pretty feet back a few.” He said, racking his brain as to any New Republic law he’d broken in the recent past. Unable to think of any, he kept his eyes on the woman’s face and didn’t let them wander anywhere else, despite clear indication that there were other parts of her that deserved a good and thorough look.

He gave her an award winning, scoundrelly smile. “Now, what can I do for you, darlin?”

“My name is Kileen Hark. I’m with New Republic Intelligence and we need to have a talk.” She said.

Now he was really confused. “Look lady, I haven’t done anything to break any New Republic laws. At least not recently. Usually you people are a lot better at catching people and that usually don’t involve the NRI. So I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said.

“Do you know a man named Gil Stazney?” She asked. “Pantoran, under two meters in height?” She asked.

Cameron shook his head. “No, I most certainly do not.” He said. “What the hell is going on. Darlin’ you need to start making some sense.”

The pretty NRI agent shook her head. “Stazney is dead.” She said. “He’s an NRI agent who went rogue. We’ve been looking for his whereabouts for a while. He surfaced, a week or so ago here on Nar Shaddaa. Also, we intercepted communications that he was going to meet with someone in a particular bar during a particular time.” She said.

The former Stormtrooper NCO started piecing the puzzle together. “You think I’m the person that he was trying to meet?” He asked. “I don’t know the guy and there were plenty of other people in that bar. There was a fight in that bar. You really expect me to remember some guy, who I’ve never met?” Cameron said. “Lady, I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

He turned and started walking up the boarding ramp. He had reached the top when he heard the unholstering of blasters. Turning, Cameron saw that the two soldiers with her had their blasters trained on him. “He spoke about you, you personally in those communiques.” Hark said. “Cameron Stavros, you’re under arrest for the murder of Gil Stazney.”

Cameron thought about raising his hands and surrendering, but something was going on here that he didn’t know enough about in order to make a decision like that. Something was up and for some reason it involved him. This Gil Stazney guy, he had implicated Cam in something that had put him on the list of people that the NRI was interested in talking to. That wasn’t good, and he needed to clear his name. Everything else was secondary now, and he sighed as he realized that he was going to have to pass on a few jobs now. He dove forward, pressing a button on his hip as he did. His belt’s controls allowed him to access his boarding ramp and the ramp started to raise.

Blaster shots rang out and a few of them got past the rising ramp to leave scorch marks near where he was. The last thing he heard as he moved to safety was the pretty NRI agent.

“We’re going to get those documents from you. You can’t run from the New Republic, Savros.” Hark said.

With that thought in the back of his mind, he ran to his cockpit, and activated the start up sequence for the ship. The last thing he wanted was for Hark to be able to interdict his ass and stop him from getting the hell out of there. He knew that this port didn’t have much in the way of tractor beams, so he wasn’t too worried about that. But then he felt a bump as he tried to lift off. Son of a bitch, that woman had gotten a tractor beam on him. He tried to goose the throttle of the JumpMaster 5000, but the ship wasn’t able to do anything. But he was able to move in place. Turning the ship around he started looking for anything that might even resemble a tractor beam projector.

He could see that Hark was directing traffic. There were soldiers and members of Nar Shaddaa Port Authority coming in with ion weapons to attempt to disable his ship and bring it down to the ground. Throwing the ship into reverse, Cameron’s eyes finally found the paneled part of the wall that was where the tractor beam projector. With a smile on his face, he opened fire with his laser cannons. The red beams of energy lanced outwards and hit the tractor beam projector.

As his ship started to move out of the hangar, Cam made sure to give Kileen Hark a salute.

Cameron’s first move had been to get the hell out of the area that he had been in. The Corellian Sector did not look like it was good for him to be in. The New Republic was going to be crawling all over the place soon. Granted, there were probably plenty of JumpMaster 5000s in the area, but that didn’t mean that it was worth taking the risk. He had to get out of there and do it fast. He was headed to the Duro sector. Hopefully, he’d be able to find a place to lay low there for a while, as he figured all of this out. What was going on? That was the question. He didn’t know but he aimed to figure out. There were people trying to capture him, after all.

Twenty minutes later, and he was safely berthed in one of the many shadowports that made up the Smuggler’s moon. Now he could think. He pieced together everything that he remembered of what Hark had said. Cam needed to figure out who this Gil Stazney was. But first, and more importantly, he needed to figure out just what in blazes that dame had meant when she’d said that they were going to get those documents back. What documents? He hadn’t brought anything on board the ship, except himself. More importantly, he hadn’t been given anything in the bar either.

Sitting in the pilots chair, drinking a glass of watered down juice from his ship’s small but decent galley, Cam tried to figure out what it all meant, breaking his head in the process. It was only after he’d decided that to give up on that angle and try to figure out who Stazney was, that he shrugged out of his jacket and everything started to make a little bit more sense to him.

A datacard fell out of one of the outside pockets of his leather jacket and clattered to the floor of the cockpit. Bending down, he picked it up. It was an old datacard, battered and bruised. Probably years of use. He couldn’t remember ever seeing it before and then he started to think back to the bar. When he had been in the middle of that fight and when he’d been on the ground, anything could have happened to him. Anyone could have put something into his jacket. Was this was Hark was talking about?

He plugged it into his ship’s onboard datacomputer and decided that it was time to take a look.

Gil Stazney was a low level NRI agent, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t been busy. The man had worked crunching numbers and looking at a lot of data. All of the data had come from a number of sources around the galaxy and it was his job in the NRI substation to put it all together and see what was going on. He was a low level analyst, nothing too important. But the man had stumbled across an interesting level of activity on a New Republic planet out in the outer rim territories. Research that was going on in the Lahsbane system. It wasn’t of any import, the problem was in the finances however. There were a lot of credits being sunk into the Lahsbane facility, but the research that was going on there was not that expensive, at least not expensive enough to warrant well over a couple hundred million credits. There was something else going on there.

Cameron had been mildly interested in going to Lahsbane and figuring out what was going on, especially since it now involved the NRI coming after him, but Stazney had done the work for him. He had already conducted a lot of investigating on his own and what he had come back with implicated a number of different people who were high up in the New Republic. There was something going on there, that involved a lot of credits and a lot of military technology. More importantly, it was something illegal, or at least something that would have been frowned upon by the rest of the galaxy.

There had been people after him for this, an internal investigation of sorts. Clearly, the people who were involved in this were high up enough to cause trouble for Stazney. The man had ran and that had been the start of things. Luckily for Cameron, there was some information there that had been documented by Stazney about everything that had happened to him. Which brought him to his next question.

Why him?

Had it truly just been something random? Gil Stazney had put the documents in his jacket pocket because he had just happened to be there? No, that didn’t make any sense. This was his life’s work and it was what the NRI was after him for. Why would he put it into the pocket of a man that he didn’t know and couldn’t trust? It made no sense which meant that the biggest question of all could only be answered by doing one thing.

The first thing that Cameron needed to do was to find a good information gatherer. Spread throughout Nar Shaddaa were people that could do the job, and while he would have preferred a Muir, he had a very good feeling that the NRI would be watching them as best as they, as best as anyone could watch a Muir. That would have been the best thing, to get in touch with one of the Bothans. But he was going to have to make do with someone else. Cameron knew who he had in mind too and she was quite good at her job. He’d come to her in the past and every time he’d found her information to be reliable and trustworthy. Also, her prices weren’t that bad. She’d helped him catch that Rodian a couple months ago for a bounty of a cool eight thousand credits. He’d had to pay her a thousand, but it had been worth it completely.

A Twi’lek by the name of Ara Moin’yun. She worked Nar Shaddaa amongst other places and if anyone was going to know what was going on and where he could find this Stazney guy, it would be her.

He had a problem though. She operated back in the Corellian Sector. He was going to have to take that risk if he wanted to get more information though. It didn’t take him too long to make up his mind. Grabbing his gear, he left his ship and found a speeder rental shop. Put in some of his hard earned credits onto the table, Cameron was ready to go. Soon he was moving through traffic. His journey was going to take a while, and that gave him a chance to think about what was going on.

His mind drifted, trying to remember any Pantorans that he had ever come across. Maybe there was a good reason why this New Republic Intelligence spook had given him the information. Had he ever come across the man before? Cam had been around countless people in his life, how was he supposed to remember one particular person who he apparently had never had any dealings with in the past.

“Ara Moin’yun.” Cam said, leaning in and giving the Twi’lek woman a kiss on the cheek. “You seem to have had an interesting night.” He said. He looked at the silky dress that the pink skinned Twi’lek had on. “Looks like you found something of an actually classy function on Nar Shaddaa. I’m impressed.” He added.

“Some function for some charity. Great place to get gossip which can turn into leads, if you know what I mean.” She said in response as they walked down the street together outside of the small restaurant that they’d met up with each other at. “As for an interesting night, from what I’ve heard you’ve had one far more like the word.” She said. When he gave her a look, the Twi’lek shrugged, her lekku twitching slightly. “Come now, I hear things. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be good at my job. NRI troubles, my dear Savros? Interesting to say the least.”

“Whatever they’re saying it’s false.” He said. “That’s why I came to you.”

“So I figured.”

Their walk had taken them back to where his speeder was parked.

“Do you have an ideas of what’s going on?” He asked. “I need to find out where this Gil Stazney guy is. He’s the one who started all of this and he’s the one who can give me the answers I need and clear my name with the NRI.” Cam said.

“Listen, you know where my apartment is.” She said. Placing a hand on his chest and scratched lightly and leaned in to speak softer. “Shouldn’t take you too long to get there, you’re a good pilot. We’ll talk more once I know it’s safe. I’ll be waiting, Cam.”

The Twi’lek maintained a decent suite in one of the higher end parts of the Corellian Sector and Cameron reached there about five minutes after Ara did herself. Her apartment had a small docking pad that jutted out into the night and there was enough space to park his speeder next to that of her own. Sliding out of the vehicle, Cameron walked up the few steps and waited for the security program to do it’s thing. It quickly scanned him and informed Ara that he indeed had a weapon on him and that it was a HattMark DE-10 Special. He was flagged as an entrant, because the security protocol was supposed to warn her if someone was attempting to bring a rather heavy firearm into her home. Ignoring the warning, she unlocked the door and bade him enter.

Walking in, Cameron had a look around. He’d never been to Ara’s home before. Usually they met at a bar or a cantina. Other times, they’d met in the hangar bay where the Fastdraw had been currently located. But never here, never in her home. It had to make you wonder if that meant that this was more serious than Cam knew. The place was well furnished and decorated. He figured that some of the credits he’d paid her over the years had gone into the artwork on the walls or the couches on the floor. When you were good at your job, you could afford nice things.

“So, what have you got for me?” He asked turning to look at her.

She hadn’t changed yet, but that was to be expected. Sitting at her bar, with a datapad in front of her, the woman was combing through information already. Her expression held one of eagerness and possibly excitement.

“I’m trying to patch into the NRI networks to see what their current status is on finding Stazney. The guy’s an analyst, nothing major, but so far he’s managed to stay low and remain, relatively at least, off the radar.” Moin’yun said. She gestured to the bar. “Make yourself useful.”

He nodded and headed in that direction. Placing his beaten wide brimmed hat on the bar, he poured the two of them a shot of Corellian Whiskey each.

“Well, I haven’t been able to find much. Last reports are from shortly after you were in the bar.” Ara said. They’d tossed back a few more shots of the whiskey and the Twi’lek shook her head slowly. “The report states that Stazney was probably headed off planet. Where, they don’t know, and they didn’t know how either. None of his known associates were supposed to be on planet, and he doesn’t have a ship.” She said.

“So he could still be on Nar Shaddaa.” Cameron said, nodding slowly. “Not that that’s a lot of help.”

“I guess the question is whether or not it’s easier to find one man on Nar Shaddaa or tracking him around the whole galaxy.” She replied. “Either way, you do need to find him.” She added. “It’s the only way to get out from underneath the thumb of the NRI. By the way, who was the NRI agent that came looking for you?” Ara asked.

“Called herself Hark. Kileen Hark.”

“I know her.” Moin’yun said with a small smile. “She’s good at what she does. You’ve got a real professional coming after you, you’re going to need to be careful. I can let you stay here for the night, but in the morning, you’re going to need to head out.”

“That’s fine.” He said. He looked at the bottle and saw that they had worked through a good portion of the whiskey. “I should probably head to sleep anyway. How do you know Hark is good anyway?” He asked, looking at the Twi’lek woman. “She come after you a while back or something like that?” Cameron asked, tossing back another shot of the whiskey. As he set the glass down, he saw the look on her face.

“Or something like that.” Ara said with a shrug. “No, she and I used to see each other socially.” She said.

His eyes widened. “Really now?” He asked and she gave him a look.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Savros.” Moin’yun said. “I have a thing for women, she has a thing for women. We acted on it and it worked for a while. Now, get some rest. You’re going to need it if my ex-girlfriend is looking for you.”

In the morning, Cameron rose and got ready to head out. He’d needed that sleep, a few good hours of uninterrupted rest. He felt recharged and renewed, ready to go after his current purpose. Find Gil Stazney. The information that Moin’yun had been able to find him didn’t tell him much. He was hoping that the man had opted to stay on Nar Shaddaa. Mainly because he felt that it was easier to look for a man in the billions of beings and places that he could be on one planet, instead of having to look across the stars.

The permutations and combinations for that one involved math that Stavros just didn’t think that he was good at. He knew that either way he was going to find that NRI agent. He didn’t like having the NRI after him and there was no way that he could get any business done if they were going to be breathing down his neck. As long as they thought that he had something to do with this, then he was going to have something to do with this.

During the rest of the night, Ara had gotten a small lead on where Stazney was. A lead, even if it was a small one, was a lead, and Cameron was interested in it. It placed the alien on Nar Shaddaa, in one of the pleasure houses. That was going to be Cam’s next stop. He was confident that no one was going to mess with his ship. He’d changed IFF transponders and it was under a different name in the hangar. The NRI wouldn’t be able to find it.

He was going snooping in the Corellian Sector, this was going to be fun.

After thanking the Twi’lek and saying good bye to her, he was off, headed to the address that she’d given him. It was a middle of the sector establishment, middle when it came to height. This meant that they had the opportunity to try to class themselves up or at least act as though they had a good bit of class. But they would know what was going on. Money talked, always and everywhere.

He’d spoken to the bouncer at the front. The bouncer, also a former Imperial Stormtrooper, had felt some kind of shared connection between himself and Cameron. The man hadn’t been a part of the 11th Battle Group, so Cameron didn’t feel much of anything towards the man. Had he been a member of Helstone’s outfit, it would have been different, but this one hadn’t personally shed any blood, sweat, or tears with Cameron in the field, so he didn’t rightly care. But he was never one to turn down free information. That was how you got killed. Information was a great thing. Turned the tides of battles, or wars. As it turned out, Stazney had been here. But he’d been here because he’d been in an argument with someone.

This was good. Cam had hoped for something like this, because maybe the person would know where he was. A jilted lover, an irate girlfriend, something like that. What he’d found out had been far more interesting.

A sister.

Stazney had a sister, yes, he remembered that from the little bit of information that he’d gotten on the man, but there hadn’t been much else. Now he had more of information to go off on, something that was always good, especially when he was looking for someone. Cameron had done enough bounty work in the past to know that much. Apparently his sister worked here in this establishment as a dancer and he had been here, in an argument with her in the back. They’d been arguing about her continued presence here. It had been rather loud. The bouncer himself had been the one to throw Stazney out. Well, he’d politely asked him to leave, he hadn’t put hands on the man. He hadn’t heard most of the argument and by the time he’d gotten there, they had reached yelling, so the particulars had escaped him. But this was a development, and now Stavros had something to really work with.

He’d thanked the bouncer and given him a bit of a tip for the information. The bouncer had tried to refuse, saying that the Stormtrooper corps made it so that he was just doing his job for a former high ranking NCO, but Cam had insisted.

So he’d gone into the pleasure house, because there was only one way to get to the girl. At least, there was only one way that got him something else as well.

The woman wore a silly excuse for clothing and she was moving in time with a pounding bassline. Cameron would have preferred something a bit slower, a bit more melodic, but he wasn’t really here on personal business. It involved his person, he thought, clarifying in his mind, but it wasn’t personal. That being said, he was a little amazed that he was able to have such coherent thoughts, considering the woman that was sitting on his lap, her knees on either side of him. She had her eyes closed, and he was positive that she was either really into the song that was playing, or she was focusing on something else. Being a stormtrooper for so long, working for Helstone for so long, it had taught him to be able to read the pain in people’s faces. It wasn’t always held in their eyes.

There was something there, on her face. With her eyes still closed, she reached down and took his hand, sliding it underneath the outfit. Now he was holding onto skin, onto the area of women that men often fantasized about. He didn’t even need to do anything; she squeezed his hand and forced him to make the motion. Not that he would have stopped her. Taking his other hand, she made their imagery more symmetrical.

Okay, now he understood the appeal of the song.

Leaning in, she whispered into his ear. “Your time’s almost up.” She said, managing to rise above the volume of the song and maintain the nature of their business together. A well developed skill, no doubt.

“Here I thought we were just getting to know each other, better.” He said, with a small smirk.

“Don’t worry, the credits are there.” He said and then she opened her eyes, looking down at him. He saw the pain in the eyes now, there wasn’t a chance of her holding it back from him. That was a look that he’d seen on the faces of countless beings that the 11th had caused irreparable damage to during his time amongst it’s ranks. Cursing himself, he gave another mental curse to the images that often times found him during the night. Sometimes there was no solace from your past, no matter how much you tried to move on.

A few brief moments with this woman wouldn’t solve that; there was no doubt about that. She rose and held out her hand. “Come with me then.” She said. Taking her hand, he allowed himself to be pulled out of the seat. They walked out of the booth that they were in and into a long corridor that was dominated by doors.

Cameron walked past them with her, wondering the stories of the people who worked behind them, the stories of the people who came and went inside of them. All those people, all those pasts. How much of them were like his? Something that he could only wonder about, as the woman opened one of the doors and they walked in. It was lit well, a bed taking up the majority of the space. He went in and she stayed, shutting the door, her back leaning against it.

When he turned around, Cameron was holding up a few tightly folded one hundred credit bills.

Her eyes took it all in, noting the New Republic demarcation. “That’s too much.”

“Not for what I want.” He replied and he saw her steel herself for his next words. “I want you to answer a few questions for me.” Cameron said. “Then I want you to go home and get some sleep.”

“Get some sleep, but first, I’ve got some questions.” Cameron said, with a small smirk. Undoubtedly the woman hadn’t thought that the words he’d said to her would be what she would hear, ever, in a room such as this, while she was working. “There’s a girl who works here, her name is Nasirana Stazney. I don’t know what her stage name might be. I need to know about her.” He added, with a bit of a shrug. He knew what he was asking could be a bit…strange.

“Why, she in trouble?” The woman asked, and it was then that Cameron knew that he had her. He could see the concern on her face, and in her body language. “She could be. I want to try to help her, but her brother’s caused some problems for a few people, and she could be hurt because of him.” Cameron said.

“I never liked him.” The woman said. “What do you need to know?” She asked.

He could tell that she was still a bit skeptical, but she was willing to trust him, a bit.

“Okay, so I need to know if she’s working tonight, and I need to know anything that might help me get her to talk to me. People don’t usually rat on their brother.” He said.

“She might. Gil wasn’t the greatest of brothers.”

“Hell, we all have shitty relatives.” Cameron said, shaking his head.

“No, he used to hit her sometimes. He didn’t approve of her choice in lifestyle. Nasirana doesn’t need to work here. She’s smart. But it’s a choice. You know, people are addicted to all kinds of things.” The woman said. “Nasirana is addicted to sex. Not drugs or anything like that. But sex, and danger. There’s a bit of that here.” She said and then considered. “More the former than the latter.” She added.

“I’d hope so.” Cameron said.

“She doesn’t work tonight. But I know she’s in tomorrow.”

Cameron nodded at that. He’d been hoping not to have to wait for a whole day. The longer that he stayed on Nar Shadaa, the easier it could be for Kileen Hark to find him and to catch him. But if that was what it was going to take, then that’s what it was going to take.

“Alright, get.” He said, and watched as she walked out of the room. He closed his eyes, thinking about the new information. But he didn’t have the chance to take much time to weigh everything. A few minutes after the woman had left, the door opened and two men walked in.

“You were supposed to have that delivery made.” One of the men said, a Trandoshan whose eyes darted around the room. “You owe us. A lot.” He added, his eyes snapping to Cameron’s, showing the famous feral side of his species.

“You don’t call, you don’t write, how are we supposed to know how you’re doing? That was a lot of credits, and our investment needs to pay off.” The other one said, a human male, whose hand rested lightly on a T-6 Thunderer that was slung at his hip. “Now, Krad here, he’s interested in at least breaking a femur.”

“Understandable. But you didn’t tell me that you were having me deliver people. I’ll do a lot of illegal shite, ain’t nothing wrong with a man trying to make an honest credit in this galaxy.” Cameron said, and then his voice got hard, getting a bite to it. “But moving folks around like that, well, that doesn’t sit too right with me.”

Krad snarled and made a step forward, but the human reached a hand out, slapping it against the Trandoshan’s meaty chest. While he didn't make another move forward, Krad's eyes attempted to burn holes into Cam.

“I can empathize with your moral qualms concerning the movement of the goods in question.” The human said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a silver Republic credit. He flipped it in the air, catching it as he spoke, his eyes on the credit, and not on Cameron. “But you wouldn’t know what you know if you hadn’t done what you did. Namely, open the crates in the first place.”

“Bit hard not to, when you have people yelling and screaming in your hold.” Cam said. He shook his head and then offered his hands outwards, palms up. “Look, I freed those people. I’ll give you your money back, hell, I’ll even give you extra to make up for the problems I’ve caused. But there’s no way that I can get those people back to you.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Krad said. “Those slaves, they were supposed to be places by now. They were supposed to belong to someone else, not themselves.” The Trandoshan lifted a hand and pointed a claw at Cameron. “You impugned our ability to offer quality services to our clients.”

Cameron nodded, but then he made a face. “Okay, just as an aside, ‘impugn’, really? You don’t know big words like that. Leave that stuff to Belsi. Your brother is a lot better at that.”

Belsi laughed. “Sooner or later, I’m going to remove my hand from Krad’s chest. My brother is going to hurt you. Do you really think insulting his intent to grow his vocabulary is going to do anything for your cause?” He asked.

The man with the wide brimmed hat shrugged, sighing at the same time. “Then take your damned hand off of him, and let’s get this over with.”

Cameron's ribs hurt. They really, really did. He stumbled down the alleyway, clutching at his side as he did. The only thing that was able to make him smile, at least a little, was that the Trandoshan was going to be hurting in the morning too. He’d given as good as he’d gotten. At least he had that going for him. The pain was tremendous and he was pretty positive that he wasn't going to make it back to his ship before he passed out. Which meant that he needed to find a comfortable section of garbage to pass out into otherwise his nap wasn't going to be pleasant.

All things considered he didn't hold it against the brothers they were just doing their job. They did have their reputation to think about, their livelihood. He would have preferred if they held some kind of morals, but this was a tough galaxy. You couldn’t get by on a hope and a prayer.

He slumped to the ground, leaning against the side of a building.

A hospital would have been nice, but he was pretty sure that that wasn't going to happen. Cameron shook his head, trying to clear it, but the pain was a bit much. It was interesting because he had been through worse in his life. Working for a man like Helstone in the Imperial Army would do that for a man. Helstone didn't like excuses, only results. He had been one of the most hard-assed commanding officers that Cameron had ever had, but he could respect the man for getting the job done. He just had a problem with how he got the job done.

There were days that Cam wasn’t sure that that made sense at all. How could you respect results but not respect the way that the results were achieved. The purpose was to get the results wasn’t it? It was one of the moral quandaries that had caused him to leave the Imperial Army in the first place.

“Son of a bitch….fething Hel…stone….fething….Army.” He said, as he stumbled along. “Told me I’d be able to do…good in the galaxy. Didn’t say nothing bout…killing folk. Don’t like killing folk….” Cameron said, to no one, since the alleyway was deserted. “You see them sometimes….in yer sleep.” He said, the last part becoming more and more slurring.

He had to wonder why he was waxing philosophic when he was experiencing such internal hemorrhaging. Maybe it was because his subconscious knew that he was hurt a lot worse than he thought he was. As that thought came to him, he buckled over for a moment. Cameron's vision was starting to swim and the world was swaying. The man fell over, into a pile of trash, and he found out, happily, that he had indeed found a comfortable pile of trash.

Thank the gods for that. Otherwise he would have been really upset with himself when he woke up. Hopefully that would be soon.

Less than a minute later, he was unconscious from blood loss, and he was in danger of going septic.

Cameron’s eyes blinked open and he tried to look around, but as soon as he did, the splitting headache reared its neck, striking immediately. This forced him to close his eyes and wince, groaning with pain. He heard a voice, though it sounded like it was coming from all around him.

“Good, you’re awake.”

He had to get up. This was bad. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know what was going on. Worst of all, he didn’t know who was talking. It could be anyone; friend or foe, and he didn’t know. If there was one thing that Cameron hated, it was not being in control of what was happening to him. The last thing he needed was for that Hark lady to have got him. The last thing he remembered was stumbling out of the strip club after fighting Krad and Belsi and the brothers had given him a beating in the process.

That was it.

Letting his eyes open a little, he saw sunlight streaming through a window. That meant that at least six hours had passed, since his last memory. Anything could have happened in six hours. Including someone taking his blaster, he realized, as he reached for the weapon.

“I’ve got it.” The voice said again.

“Well, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.” He mumbled back, trying to sit up on the couch that he was lying on.

A hand connected with his chest and knocked him back down. It sucked being that weak, but it was the way the cards were being dealt at the moment. A woman came into view, holding his blaster pistol, leveled directly at his face. A blue skinned woman with long, purple hair. She had a pretty face, but Cameron would have been lying if he’d said that he’d noticed it. No, his eyes focused solely on the blaster pistol that she held in her hands. His blaster pistol.

“If I wanted you at a severe disadvantage, I wouldn’t have made sure that you weren’t dying.” She said.

While the frown came over his features for a moment, it soon changed, as he saw the bacta patches that were on his arm. The woman reached down and pulled the bottom of his shirt up, revealing more patches on his ribs. “You’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for me.” She said.

“Well, can I have your name, so I can thank you?” Cameron asked, as she took a few steps back, and sat down in a chair near the couch that he was on.

“My name is Nasirana Stazney.” She said, and his eyes widened. “I want to know why you’re so damned interested in me.” She said.

“It’s not you I’m interested in, it’s your brother.” Cameron said, and her eyes narrowed even as she frowned.

“Gil?” She asked. “What do you want with Gil?”

“I’ll explain it, but I work better when people aren’t aiming a cannon in my face.” Cameron said, indicating the blaster pistol that she was still holding.

She looked down at it and nodded, setting it down in her lap. But then it was back p in the air and pointed at him. “I don’t care if you’re uncomfortable.” Nasirana said evenly. “You’re after my brother and you’re apparently attempting to use me to get information. I want to know why.” She said.

Cameron sighed. This lady was starting to get annoying. Just because he had bacta patches didn’t mean that the pain was fully gone, or the splitting headache that he’d developed. “Look, I’m being chased by the NRI for something that a Pantoran named Gil Stazney apparently did. This NRI spook said that they had proof of me meeting your brother. They don’t want me, they want Gil or something that he has in his possession.” Cameron said.

“So talk to Gil about it.” She said, shrugging.

His eyes tracked the movement of the barrel of the weapon. He didn’t know how proficient she was with blasters, but he didn’t trust anyone with a weapon like that. No one had the hands that he had and Cam especially didn’t trust them when the weapon was being pointed at him.

“Obviously, that’s the plan.” He said with a smirk. “Unfortunately, I never met your brother, let alone do I know what he looks like.” Cameron said. “So I did a little big of digging, and lo and behold, he’s got a sister who works right here in Nar Shaddaa as a dancer.”

“Why should I believe you?” Nasirana asked.

“Believe me.” He said and then smiled, rolling his eyes. “Don’t believe me. I rightly don’t give a damn, sweetheart. All I care about is whether you’re going to tell me where your brother is. You tell me that, I take my personal effects and leave, and you’ll never see me again.”

Indecision warred within her, and he could see it. Cam remembered what the gril from the club had told him about Nasirana. Smart, and she didn’t need to be a dancer or a prostitute, but something about the lifestyle was addicting. Plus, the sex whenever you wanted it couldn’t be that bad either, especially when you were getting paid for it. Sure, diseases were widespread, just like any kind of ailment in this galaxy, but that was the beauty of the advanced technological age that they lived in, what with the medicines.

“So, what do you say?” Cameron asked, leaning back in the chair. “Want to help me find your brother?” He asked.

Nasirana sighed and proceeded to give Cam one of the possible answers that he had been hoping wouldn’t be the case. The answer that was going to make this whole thing that much more difficult, as if the NRI chasing him and now working with some beat up body parts wasn’t difficult enough.. “I would help you, if I knew where he was.”

The man shook his head, a grimace on his face. “What do you mean?” He asked. “You have to know where he is, he’s your brother.”

“Do you have any siblings?” She asked, with humor in her voice. “And do you know where they are, all the time, in this big, wide, dirty galaxy we live in?” Nasirana laughed afterwards, as if the thought of what Cameron had said was the funniest thing she’d heard in a while.

“I did.” Cameron admitted, his face becoming a mask. “A brother and a sister. They’re not alive anymore, but I know where they are, where they’re buried. You’re damned right I knew where they were when they were alive.”

As a moment of silence fell over the conversation, her composure changed. She studied him in the early moments of sunlight afforded them by the morning sun. There was definitely a gruff exterior, definitely a roguish charm. Assured determination, due to a track record of achieving results. This was a man who went after what he wanted, and got what he wanted. There weren’t any qualms about it. Scars were visible on his arms and on his neck, and she could see that the life that Cameron had had over the years hadn’t always been the greatest.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stir up any bad emotions. But the answer is that I can’t tell you what you want to know.” Her free hand rose in to the air in a halting motion when he started to get up. “That doesn’t mean that I’m unwilling to help you, however.”

“Lady, I don’t play well with others.” Cam retorted with a smirk. “I’m kind of a ‘do things by myself’ sort of guy.”

“That much is obvious.” Nasirana said. She reached into a pocket and produced a small package of thick paper wrappd with a thin layer of plastic. Flipping open the top of the box, she produced a small, thinly wrapped tube filled with t’bacc. A lighter soon followed, and smoke wafted up in the air after that. Holding it out, she gave him an expectant look, and he soon joined her in smoking. “But the fact is that I know my brother’s habits and I know where he might go, if he’s on the run from someone.” She said. “I’m probably your best bet.” She added.